It Is Well With My Soul

My thanks to Erik Kowalker this:

For those of you not familiar with the background of this famous hymn “It is well with my soul” by Horatio Spafford, take the next three minutes to listen and view the severely traumatic events that led Spafford to pen this influential hymn in 1873 that has stood the test of time. May God bring this powerful hymn to your remembrance when difficult seasons in your Christian walk come your way.

Filed under: Christ our treasure, Christ-centred, Christian Hope, Death, Evangelical, God's goodness, Grace, Jesus Christ, Suffering, The Christian Life, The Gospel

Changed by the cross

(HT: Rick Ianniello)

Filed under: Christ our Mediator, Christ our righteousness, Christ our treasure, Christian Hope, Discipleship, Evangelical, Faith, God's Love, God's grace, God's mercy, God's worthiness, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, Salvation, Sanctification, The Christian Life, The Church, The Cross, The Gospel, The glory of Christ, The word of God

The Hopeless Dawn

My thanks to Ray Ortlund for posting this encouraging piece:

“The Hopeless Dawn” by Frank Bramley shows a young widow, who has just found out that her husband was lost at sea, being comforted by her godly mother-in-law. Notice the altar-like table, suggesting the Lord’s Supper. Notice the big open Bible on the seat by the window. The two suffering women are not alone. Christ is there.

Sooner or later every one of us is confronted with a hopeless dawn. Hopeless, as someone or something important to us is taken away forever. A dawn, because that very moment of overwhelming loss is the beginning of a new era. Christ is there.

I have met many men, in their 50s like me, who have simply lived long enough to get body-slammed by life in some unforeseeable, major way. Divorce, cancer, their business stolen out from underneath them, sued, a wayward child breaking their heart, and so forth. Previous successes make no difference and offer no protection. Sooner or later, the unimaginable comes and finds us. It’s just a matter of time.

What I am learning is that such a moment is not when I should say, “Okay, now I begin again.” Instead, it is when I can say, “Okay, now I begin.” Christ is there.

Filed under: Christian Hope, Death, Discipleship, Doctrine, Evangelical, God's mercy, Jesus Christ, Providence, Sanctification, Sovereignty of God, Suffering, The Bible, The Christian Life, The glory of Christ, The word of God

Hope so?

“Christian hope is not about wishing things will get better. It is not about hoping that emptiness will go away, meaning return, and life will be stripped of its uncertainties, aches, and anxieties. Nor does it have anything to do with techniques for improving fallen human life, be those therapeutic, spiritual, or even religious. Hope has to do with the knowledge of ‘the age to come.’ This redemption is already penetrating ‘this age.’ The sin, death, meaninglessness of the one age are being transformed by the righteousness, life, and meaning of the other. What has emptied out life, what has scarred and blackened it, is being displaced by what is rejuvenating and transforming it. More than that, hope is hope because it knows it has become part of a realm, a kingdom, that endures. It knows that evil is doomed, that it will be banished. This kind of hope has left behind it the ship of ‘this age,’ which is sinking. And if this other realm, this place where Christ is even now ruling, did not exist, Christians would be ‘of all people most to be pitied’ (1 Cor. 15:19). Their hope would be groundless and they would have lived out an illusion.” 

- David F. Wells, The Courage to be Protestant

(HT: Allsufficientgrace)

Filed under: Christian Hope, David Wells, Discipleship, Doctrine, Evangelical, Heaven, The Bible, The Christian Life

Resolutions for [good/godly] mental health

From James Grant:

I remember reading John Piper’s book The Pleasures of God and the list of 10 resolutions from Clyde Kilby on how to benefit your soul and mental health. Justin Buzzard posted them this week, and it was a helpful reminder. John Piper writes about Kilby, “He pled with us to stop seeking mental health in the mirror of self-analysis, but instead to drink in the remedies of God in nature.” Here are the resolutions:

1. At least once every day I shall look steadily up at the sky and remember that I, a consciousness with a conscience, am on a planet traveling in space with wonderfully mysterious things above and about me.

2. Instead of the accustomed idea of a mindless and endless evolutionary change to which we can neither add nor subtract, I shall suppose the universe guided by an Intelligence which, as Aristotle said of Greek drama, requires a beginning, a middle, and an end. I think this will save me from the cynicism expressed by Bertrand Russell before his death when he said: “There is darkness without, and when I die there will be darkness within. There is no splendor, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment, and then nothing.”

3. I shall not fall into the falsehood that this day, or any day, is merely another ambiguous and plodding twenty-four hours, but rather a unique event, filled, if I so wish, with worthy potentialities. I shall not be fool enough to suppose that trouble and pain are wholly evil parentheses in my existence, but just as likely ladders to be climbed toward moral and spiritual manhood.

4. I shall not turn my life into a thin, straight line which prefers abstractions to reality. I shall know what I am doing when I abstract, which of course I shall often have to do.

5. I shall not demean my own uniqueness by envy of others. I shall stop boring into myself to discover what psychological or social categories I might belong to. Mostly I shall simply forget about myself and do my work.

6. I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow them the mystery of what Lewis calls their “divine, magical, terrifying and ecstatic” existence.

7. I shall sometimes look back at the freshness of vision I had in childhood and try, at least for a little while, to be, in the words of Lewis Carroll, the “child of the pure unclouded brow, and dreaming eyes of wonder.”

8. I shall follow Darwin’s advice and turn frequently to imaginative things such as good literature and good music, preferably, as Lewis suggests, an old book and timeless music.

9. I shall not allow the devilish onrush of this century to usurp all my energies but will instead, as Charles Williams suggested, “fulfill the moment as the moment.” I shall try to live well just now because the only time that exists is now.

10. Even if I turn out to be wrong, I shall bet my life on the assumption that this world is not idiotic, neither run by an absentee landlord, but that today, this very day, some stroke is being added to the cosmic canvas that in due course I shall understand with joy as a stroke made by the architect who calls himself Alpha and Omega.

Filed under: Attributes of God, Christian Hope, Discernment, Discipleship, Doctrine, Evangelical, God centredness, Jesus Christ, John Piper, Providence, Renewing the Mind, Sanctification, Sovereignty of God, The Bible, The Christian Life, The Gospel, The word of God, Truth

Reasons Believers in Christ Need Not Be Afraid

Adrian Warnock pointed me in the direction of this encouraging piece from John Piper:

1. We will not die apart from God’s gracious decree for his children.

James 4:14-15

“If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

Matthew 10:29-30

“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

Deuteronomy 32:39

“See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.” (See Job 1:21;1 Samuel 2:6; 2 Kings 5:7)

2. Curses and divination do not hold sway against God’s people.

Numbers 23:23

“There is no enchantment against Jacob, no divination against Israel.”

3. The plans of terrorists and hostile nations do not succeed apart from our gracious God.

Psalm 33:10

“The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples.”

Isaiah 8:9-10

“Take counsel together [you peoples], but it will come to nothing; speak a word, but it will not stand, for God is with us.” (See 2 Samuel 7:14; Nehemiah 4:15)

4. Man cannot harm us beyond God’s gracious will for us.

Psalm 118:6

“The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?”

Psalm 56:11

“In God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?”

5. God promises to protect his own from all that is not finally good for them.

Psalm 91:14

“Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name.”

6. God promises to give us all we need to obey, enjoy, and honor him forever.

Matthew 6:31

“Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ . . . Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Philippians 4:19

“And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

7. God is never taken off guard.

Psalm 121:4

“Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.”

8. God will be with us, help us, and uphold us in trouble.

Isaiah 41:10

“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

Isaiah 41:13

“For I, the LORD your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, ‘Fear not, I am the one who helps you.’”

9. Terrors will come, some of us will die, but not a hair of our heads will perish.

Luke 21:10-11, 18

“Then [Jesus] said to them, ‘. . . there will be terrors (!) and great signs from heaven. . . . and some of you they will put to death. . . . But not a hair of your head will perish.’”

10. Nothing befalls God’s own but in its appointed hour.

John 7:30

“So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.” (See John 8:20; 10:18)

11. When God Almighty is your helper, none can harm you beyond what he decrees.

Hebrews 13:6

“So we can confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?’”

Romans 8:31

“If God is for us, who can be against us?”

12. God’s faithfulness is based on the firm value of his name, not the fickle measure of our obedience.

1 Samuel 12:20-22

“And Samuel said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. . . . For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake.’”

13. The Lord, our protector, is great and awesome.

Nehemiah 4:14

“Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome.”

Trusting firm promises with you in fragile times,

Pastor John

Filed under: Attributes of God, Christian Hope, Communion with God, Death, Disaster, Discernment, Discipleship, Doctrine, Evangelical, Faith, God the Father, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, John Piper, Power of God, Providence, Sanctification, Sovereignty of God, The Bible, The Christian Life, The Cross, The Gospel, The word of God

“God is plotting for your joy”

The Lesson of the Book of Ruth – John Piper

Here’s what I would suggest as the main lesson: the life of the godly is not a straight line to glory, but they do get there. The life of the godly is not an Interstate through Nebraska, but a state road through the Blue Ridge Mountains of Tennessee. There are rock slides and precipices and dark mists and bears and slippery curves and hairpin turns that make you go backwards in order to go forwards. But all along this hazardous, twisted road that doesn’t let you see very far ahead there are frequent signs that say, “The best is yet to come.” And at the bottom right corner written with an unmistakable hand are the words, “As I live, says the Lord!”

The book of Ruth is one of those signs for you to read. It was written and it has been preached to give you some midsummer encouragement and hope that all the perplexing turns in your life lately are not dead-end streets. In all the setbacks of your life as a believer God is plotting for your joy.

(HT: Adrian Warnock)

Filed under: Attributes of God, Christian Hope, Christian hedonism, Discipleship, Doctrine, Evangelical, Grace, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, John Piper, Providence, Sanctification, Sovereignty of God, Suffering, The Bible, The Cross, Truth

Steve Curtis Chapman on Good Morning America

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Filed under: Christian Hope, Heaven, News & Views, Suffering, The Christian Life